The present invention relates to a smokable planar or hose-type food casing or food casing film for food packagings, such as, e.g., sausage casings, shrink bags or the like on polymer basis used in the production of smokable sausage or meat articles, wherein the sausage or meat mass is filled into the smokable casing or film prior to smoking, formed in the blown extrusion or jet-blasting process from homogeneous molten plastic material consisting of a plastic mixture at least of PA (polyamide) with PVAL (polyvinyl alcohol) and PEBAX (polyether block amide), wherein the plastic mixture comprises a content of PA (polyamide) or of a mixture of polyamides of 40 to 80% (wt.), a content of PVAL (polyvinyl alcohol) of 5 to 40% (wt.), and a content of PEBAX (polyether block amide) of 20 to 30% (wt.).
Smokable sausage casings are known from practice and from literature. Thus DE 199 42 835 A1 teaches a sausage casing of an artificial sausage casing material, for which purpose a gas and oxygen permeable, soft plastic material is to be employed. The sausage casing material described in DE 199 42 835 A1 has an irregularly curved sausage shape with welded longitudinal seams. This sausage casing is said to be smokable and have a sufficiently high strength for this purpose.
There is moreover known from DE 198 30 389 A1 a film for air-drying, smokable foodstuffs. Furthermore DE 101 25 762 A1 describes a shaped article having an irregular external contour, which is manufactured from a once-folded film material web of a weldable plastic in a welding and cutting machine for welding and separating the material webs. This cut-welded shaped article is said to result in a smokable sausage casing having a sufficiently high strength.
Moreover in DE 35 26 394 C2 a raw sausage casing is described which is said to be produced of a binder-free spun fleece of at least one polyamide joined together into a hose in the longitudinal direction. This raw sausage casing is said to be smokable. In DE 35 26 394 C2, reference is also made to DE 30 29 028 A1 that discloses a fiber fleece-reinforced artificial casing which is said to be smokable. The fibre fleece used for this purpose may be formed on a polyamide base. Particularly suited spun fleeces are to be on the basis of polyamide and polypropylene. The like spun fleeces are to be impregnated with a coating solution. Suitable coating materials in accordance with DE 30 29 028 A1 are, in turn, any film-forming polymers that are applied in the form of a powder and subsequently thermally melted into a film or applied as a coating in the form of a solution of molten material, suspension, or dispersion, and that may be formed into a film by subsequent drying. Suited coating materials mentioned are, i. a., molecular disperse or colloidal solutions or suspensions of various polymers by themselves or in mixtures, such as, e.g., polyvinyl alcohol.
DE 42 20 957 A1 finally discloses a packaging casing comprising a flexible carrier material provided with a foam layer. The coating material used for this purpose is to be fully saponified polyvinyl alcohol. The foam of this substance is said to be waterproof, grease-tight and substantially impermeable for oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Merely water vapor may freely penetrate through the foam layer of fully saponified polyvinyl alcohol. Fully saponified polyvinyl alcohol is therefore said to be suited for sausage casings, in particular for raw sausages. Furthermore combinations including polyvinyl alcohol with other plastic dispersions are said to be conceivable.
Smokable polyamide-based food casings with polyvinyl alcohol are thus known from the prior art. These known smokable food casings must, however, revert to fiber fleeces or spun fleeces, nettings, or other carrier or support materials, on which it is then possible to apply coatings. The like known smokable sausage casings can not be manufactured on an industrial scale. They are moreover not suited for automated further processing, e.g, in large butcher's shops, owing to their low rigidity and thus low gathering suitability, and a dimensional stability that is unsatisfactory as a general rule.